THE things we are accustomed to we
do not appreciate as we ought. What comes without effort is accepted
without thought. Thus it is with our roads; we take them as we do our
common mercies. It is hard to imagine a time when things were
otherwise—when in the Highlands there were not only no railways or
telegraph wires, but no stage-coaches, no carriages, no roads; and when
travel from place to place was difficult and even dangerous. Cockburn, in
his "Memorials," tells of the discomforts in his day

;
and Lord Lovat, of the '45, gives an amusing description of a journey
south from the Aird, and of the breakdowns and the mishaps by the way. He
says:—"I brought my wheel-wright with me the length of Aviemore, in case
of accidents, and there I parted with him, because he declared my chariot
would go safe enough to London; but I was not eight miles from the place,
when on the plain road, the axle-tree of the hind-wheels broke in two, so
that my girles were forced to go on bare horses behind footmen, and I was
obliged to ride myself, tho’ I was very tender, and the day very cold (31
July). I came with that equipage
to Ruthven late at night, and my chariot was pulled there by force of men,
where I got an English Wheel-wright and a Smith, who wrought two days
mending my chariot; and after paying very dear for their work, and for my
quarters two nights, I was not gone four miles from Ruthven, when it broke
again, so that I was in a miserable condition till I came to Dalnaceardach."
Here repairs were again made, but at the hill of Drummond further trouble
arose. This time the fore-axle-tree gave way, and "wrights and carts and
smiths" had to be brought to the assistance of the unfortunate travellers.
Drumuachdar was then as hard to cross as the Alps.

The Romans were the great
road-makers. Their roads started from the golden pillar in the Forum at
Rome, "traversed Italy, pervaded the provinces, and were terminated only
by the frontiers of the Empire." Gibbon says

:—"The
public roads were accurately divided by milestones, and ran in a direct
line from one city to another, with very little respect for obstacles,
either of nature, or of private property." . . . "They united the subjects
of the most distant provinces by an easy and familiar intercourse, but
their primary object had been to facilitate the marching of the legions,
nor was any country considered as completely subdued till it had been
rendered in all its parts pervious to the arms and the authority of the
Conqueror." The Appian Way, made by Appius Claudius, A.U. 441 was called
the "Queen of Roads." The Romans made roads through England and the south
of Scotland; and they are said to have even penetrated to the far north.
In our parish, on the line from Braemar to Burghead, there are traces here
and there, as at Lynbreck and Congash, of what are marked in the Ordnance
Maps as Roman roads. But it is very doubtful if the Romans had anything to
do with them. They are more likely to have been old cattle tracks, or
roads made by the Church. In the Reg. Moraviense, mention is made of the
"Via Regia" in the time of Alexander II., 1236; and again, in 1253, there
is reference to the road running from the Standing Stones, at Finlarig, to
Findhorn. Cosmo Innes says that more progress was made in Scotland in the
reigns of Alexander II. and Alexander III. than till the Union of 1707.
The Via Regia is often referred to in charters, with the right of way and
pasturage that pertained to it, and there seems to be a trace of it in the
old road at Tulloch, south of Staor-na-mannach, which is still called
Rathad an Righ, "The King’s Road." In road improvements
England was before Scotland, and the south of Scotland before the north.
The first great advance in the Highlands was made by General Wade. Great
trunk lines, with branches in different directions, were executed by him.
By 1770, it is said, he had made some 800 miles of roads, and about 1000
bridges. His plan was to go right on, up hill and down dale, with as
little deviation as possible. In travelling from Blair Athol to Kingussie
it is possible at some points to mark the old and the new roads. Wade’s
roads, with his round arched bridges, may be seen well up on the hill.
Lower down is the coach road, made by the Commissioners of Highland Roads
and Bridges, winding along the glen, while the Highland Railway holds on
its course, sometimes on the same side of the glen and sometimes on the
other. The road from Castleton to the coast, made by Wade, passes through
our parish; and interesting bits, with remains of bridges, may be seen
between Dirdow and Grantown. The bridge over the Spey is one of Wade’s
bridges. Originally it had the usual steep fall at the north side, but the
road having been raised to the level of the arch, the peculiarity is not
now so perceptible. At the Abernethy end stands a slab, partly mutilated,
with the following inscription:—"A.D. 1754. 5 Companies of the 33rd
Regiment, Honourable Lord Charles Hay, Colonel. Finished." This bridge
suffered from the great flood of 1829 (cf. Lauder). The new roads were not
at first popular. Both chiefs and clansmen disliked them. Tennant
says:—"These publick works were at first very disagreeable to the old
Chieftains, and lessened their influence greatly; for by admitting
strangers among them, their Clans were taught that the Lairds were not the
first of men." Buckle, in his "History of Civilisation," speaks to the
same effect:—"Roads were cut through their country, and for the first time
travellers from the South began to mingle with them, in their hitherto
inaccessible wilds." The people, on the other hand, not only complained
that they brought in strangers, but that they broke up their old customs.
They said that the rough, stony ways were not suited to their unshod
horses, and that they preferred the grass and the heather. It is curious
to find objections of the same sort rife in Asia Minor in the present day.
Professor Ramsav says:—-" The surface of the new roads is not suitable for
the feet of the animals, which carry goods, for the small, loose stones
annoy them. Hence the Muleteers prefer the old narrow tracks, which are
better adapted to the animals’ feet." In a work on the Highlands, by the
Rev. Alexander Irvine, of Rannoch, 1802, we have a statement which
strikingly illustrates the old state of things:—

"The Braes of Perth
and Inverness shires have no communication; hence in winter many lives are
lost. . . . You would think that, like the ancient barbarians of the north
of Europe, the Highlanders delighted in being separated by frightful
deserts. A person is astonished to see the natives scrambling with beasts
of burden (there are no carts) over precipices that would frighten a
stranger. It will require a day to travel over those rugged surfaces only
12 miles by any person but a native. The common rate is at a mile an hour.
From Inverness to the Point of Kintail what a road! if it can be so
called, for it is hardly agreed upon by travellers which is the line,
every one making one for himself. If you cross over to the islands you are
every moment in danger of straying or perishing. The paths, such as they
are, take such oblique and whimsical directions, not even excepting
General Wade’s roads across the Grampians, that they seem hardly to have
been drawn by rational beings. Our sheep follow better lines; they tread
round the side of the hill, and when they ascend or descend they select
the easiest and safest track. I suppose the Highland roads in general have
remained in those perplexities and curvations which they had when the boar
and the wolf contended with the natives for their possessions, and when
each tribe traced the wary mate, to attack, or escape the incursions of,
one another."

After General Wade, the great
road-makers were Telford and Mitchell. Southey, after referring to
Telford’s grand work of bridging the Menai Straits—

"Structure of more ambitious
enterprise
Than minstrel in the age of old romance
To their own Merlin’s magic lore ascribed,"

goes on to describe his achievements in his own
native land:-

"Where his roads,
In beautiful and sinuous line far seen,
Wind with the vale, and win the long ascent.
Now o’er the deep morass sustain’d, and now
Opening a passage through the wilds subdued."

It was by Telford that the present
bridge at Abernethy, which came in place of the old bridge higher up, and
the new road to Boat of Garten, was designed. Much was done by the Lairds
of Grant for the improvement of the parish roads. It is said that in Sir
James’s time 130 miles of new roads were made, and the good work, under
the Parish Council, is still being carried on. In the beginning of the
century, Grantown bridge was the only one between the two Craigellachies;
now, counting the railway bridges, there are nine bridges in this district
spanning the Spey. The Highland and Speyside Railways were opened in 1863.
If roads and bridges form an important factor in the civilisation of a
country, much more may this be said of railways. The benefits they have
conferred are incalculable. One signal advantage is the influx of "summer
visitors," who leave much money in the country, and whose kindly
intercourse with the people, and generous help of the poor and needy,
deserve grateful acknowledgment.

"Ha! we start the ancient
stillness,
Swinging down the long incline;
Over Spey, by Rothiemurchus,
Forests of primeval pine.

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